Take the cost of bread (per lb), adjusted for inflation it's gotten less expensive over the last 30-40 years, not more. The same's true of milk, lower production costs are being passed along, obviously in part, to the end consumer.

Even for a company like Altria, which sells a literally addictive product with ~50% market share in a true duopoly/oligopoly, there's a limit to how high prices can go. Consumers switch to discount brands, stop smoking, or switch to alternatives (vape/pouch). The inflationary environment is actually challenging in that respect as there's an upper limit to price increases and it's more palatable to the consumer to raise prices 2-3% in a low inflationary environment than 6-7% in one that's high.

so just to be clear do you think that true profit maximization in the post-covid era dictates that companies should only increase prices at inflationary levels and never exceed them? because i think that's silly, and i think it's clear these companies can capitalize on the general rise in prices to slightly increase them even more while maintaining enough demand to offset any losses on that side.

if bread is scheduled to go up 3 cents due to inflation, why not charge 5 cents? you'll make more, and you'll lose almost zero consumers.

the 30-40 year macro scale is a mess of a conversation, yes we've been gifted savings due to lower costs of production, and we've been given far worse quality products and fewer choices outside of the oligopoly umbrella. on top of that the gains in production have largely been publicly funded, while we have only a small consolation of lower costs and far fewer jobs. corporations have exploited the R&D tax loophole to eliminate massive amounts of labor and reap the profits this production gain gives them.

I guess that shrinking packages size for the same price are helping losing body fat.

That's not true. US inflation rates have been below 4% since June 2023.
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

Or look at the following chart:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/273418/unadjusted-monthly-inflation-rate-in-the-us/

So there was indeed a temporary surge in inflation, which went away due to the effects of covid wearing off and due to interest rate hikes. Since roughly last summer, inflation has stabilized in the vicinity of 3.5%. This is higher than the ~2% from the pre-covid era, yes, but that's easily explained by war in Ukraine, energy markets in turmoil, OPEC production cuts and deglobalization.

i guess we're inbetween in our contexts here. im arguing the strawman more than you, that being that i hear CONSTANTLY when people bitch about inflation in 2024 "well blame biden's stimmy checks" then "no no its trump's fault too he gave out checks". that's what caused a lot of the 2021 inflation to be sure, but the boogeyman is long gone for the continued inflation now in 2024.

Not sure your guys should lose alot of time with this complicated subjet

It does play a role in the political context. Politically speaking, voters don't give a fuck how high the YoY inflation rate in June 2024 was, a metric which only goes back to June 2023. No, what they care about is how much more expensive stuff is today compared to 2020. Therefore, the part of the overall inflation which was caused by covid overspending is politically salient because it's still contained in the thing that pisses voters off.

From a high-info voter perspective, it's quite jarring to see how anemic the economy still is, considering the huge deficit spending by the government. When the government pumps that much money into the economy, we would expect better growth numbers. In particular, inflation-adjusted wages are still lower than at Biden's inauguration, and have been stagnant for the past 2.75 years:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1kkRB

tldr when people are paying double or triple for stuff at the store, that builds up negative energy they displace at a political party.

It depends on what the market will support. If bread makers could increase the price of bread endlessly they would. They haven't because they can't. Markets aren't perfect, it's a constant give and take as consumers try to figure out how to get things cheaper (free, preferably) and businesses try and rip them off.

While true in principle, this logic doesn't apply straightforwardly in oligopolic markets where the big fish can (ab)use their market share to stiffle competitors. This is a debate we as a society already had some 120 years ago...